Chester S. Geier

“ As long as Big Tim remained there under the influence of the globe, he would remain unconscious, living, perhaps, a dream as real and vivid as his own had been. It would be just as though Big Tim were dead. None of the expedition members knew of the doorway through which he and Big Tim had entered. With the almost continuous storms which raged on Titan, the door would soon become covered again. Ages might pass before a chance accident revealed it once more.
He, Nellon, could go back to the ship with a tale of how he had lost Big Tim in the bitter storm. ”

“ Soothing waves of sensation washed over him. He drifted away on warm tides that held nothing of sound or feeling.
And then the nothingness was gone. He stood on a flagstone path that ran between a lane of trees. At one end the path led to a curving stairway that wound up a rocky slope to a building of pink stone. Peace and quiet lay over the scene, like a crystal blanket of supernal clarity.
Realization came to him, bringing with it an electrifying amazement. He was back—back in that strange and exotically beautiful other-place which seemed to be Leeta's home! ”

“ Nellon had, in fact, concealed his pain and desire so effectively that Big Tim had never awakened to the truth.
Nellon remembered almost the exact words Laura used that evening. Even now the tones of her voice rang in his ears, gentle and sad.
"I'm sorry, Brad," she had said. "Please try to understand. I really do like you—an awful lot. You're like a rock, solid and strong, something to cling to. But Tim is like a big, clumsy playful dog—so terribly lovable. I can't help it. Really, Brad, if it wasn't for Tim, I'd never hesitate to marry you." ”

“ Hager muttered blackly against the storm, wondering why he had allowed his trapper's dream of wealth to lure him to this far northern corner of Alaska. It was a cold, bleak and hostile country. Tiny settlements, like Moose Gulch were few and far between. Of course, furs were at their best and most plentiful here. He and Cahill had proved that, for their catch was a large one. Hager's thoughts soared briefly above his bitter mood as he thought of the money the furs would bring. And of the things that the money would bring back in civilization. ”

“ A huge bird-like shape was gliding down toward the pavilion. Flying beside it, grotesquely like fighter planes escorting a giant bomber, were a number of smaller shapes—vaguely man-like. But it was not this sight alone that filled Bryan with nightmare amazement. For astride the bird-thing was a slender-limbed figure in veil-like garments—a girl. And against the dark backdrop of the sky, girl and winged creatures alike all seemed to shine with an eerie glow, a luminous radiance. ”

“ Davey said softly, "The radiation here would kill ordinary people, Fran. But it gave birth to us and is a part of us. We of the new race draw life and not death from it. The cities are home to us, for only we can live in them. And we will live in peace, safely and without being disturbed. In the cities we will build again, more wisely and strongly than those before us." ”

“ For an instant the globe seemed unsubstantial, illusory—then it was solid, resting quietly on the floor of the glade.
Andy stood out in the small clearing, waving a goodbye to them, while behind him a strange metallic globe suddenly shimmered in the air....
Pearce watched it, his heart pounding.
"Andy!"
The call hit him like a physical blow. Stunned, he whirled to see Ellen hurrying toward him through the trees.
"Andy!" she cried again. "Are you all right?"
"Ellen!" he gasped. "What are you doing here? ”

“ I should not have admitted to killing Pearce had I been guilty of a crime. But I fear that the shadow of suspicion will lay over me until another expedition returns from Venus and verifies my words.
And in late Spring, when the cocoons open and the butterflies emerge, I will always think of a similar season on Venus, when a similar event occurs. When the crimson gems break open with a thin, tinkling sound, and the exquisite, deadly butterfly-creatures flutter forth.... ”

“ Nellon was stunned, crushed. But out of his despair a slow wonder rose. How long had he been unconscious there beside the great green cylinder? The degree to which the snow had blotted out the litter of the camp suggested that it must have been many months. For a moment it seemed incredible that his momentary exposure to the emerald rays of the globe could have produced such a result. Then he remembered the beings, circular row upon circular row of them, lying beneath it, and an awesome knowledge flooded over him.
Those beings were not dead. ”

“ Swifter and swifter the huge wings beat. Bryan clutched at the feathers under him, rocked by the surges of giant muscles, buffeted by the torrent of air that rushed past.
The valley wall rose ahead, and through a deep cleft in the towering masses of rock he saw a deadly blue shimmer. The bird descended toward the cleft—and abruptly he felt its stunned dismay.
"Leeta has gone through the portal! She has reached the fire!"
Anguish flamed in Bryan. He had done this. If Leeta died, it would be as though he had killed her with his own hands. ”

“ Carefully she went back over what Tom had told her, sifting the contents of his message for implications she might have missed. His warning became vivid in her mind, and abruptly, chillingly, she remembered the barking of dogs in the distance and men on horseback racing far-off across a field. She remembered a faint, triumphant baying and the muted thunder of guns. She remembered clutching in fright at her Mother's hand and seeing Big Luke ride back to them across the yard.
An echo of his voice reached her over the years. ”

“ She can visit this point in time only once."
"That's her problem, Andy. You have your own life to live. Why shouldn't you be able to live it as you choose? You don't know just what sort of a life the future holds for you—but you do know what you'll find here."
He gripped his knees hard, finally shook his head. "This is something bigger than we are, Ellen—something more important than your personal happiness, or mine. It isn't just that Nela is depending on me. Behind her is a whole civilization. It's the greatest responsibility a man can be given. ”

“ Heedless of danger, Pearce and I rushed forward. When we reached Sandley, the last of what must originally have been a horde of butterfly-creatures was leaving his motionless form. We were too late. Our terrible knowledge hadn't come soon enough.
In an abrupt, overwhelming fury, I pointed my machine-pistol at the fluttering demons and sent a stream of pellets into their midst. The force of the barrage would have cut a man in two, but the things didn't seem to be affected in the slightest way. ”

“ The way around Tower Point was one of the chief dangers, for there was no telling where the snow ended and the ice began. A sudden slip meant a swift slide down and onto the frozen surface of the lake. There, where the wind swept in all its unbroken force, one would be blown helplessly over the icy edge of the falls and dashed to death on the jagged ice teeth far below. Dick Fulsom, metallurgist, had already lost his life that way.
And that was the way Nellon had planned Big Tim Austin would die. Tower Point would mark the scene of another tragedy. ”

“ But first—you have seen something of this valley? You have seen that it is beautiful?"
"Very beautiful, Leeta."
"But only the valley is like that. All the rest of my world is bathed in a terrible fire that destroys any life it touches."
"I have seen that, too," he said. "Was it always this way?"
"Not always. Once the entire world was like the valley, beautiful, filled with life. There were fully as many people as on your own world. And they had great knowledge—too much knowledge, perhaps. They lived in vast cities and had many wonderful machines to serve them. ”

“ They were sleeping and dreaming, and the green globe brooded over them like some vast guardian, soothing, nourishing.
And Big Tim slept with them. When they awoke, Big Tim would wake and live again. But he, Nellon, would not live again. Suddenly his fear and hate of the storm returned in full and terrible force. Because when his batteries were exhausted, his suit would cool—and the storm would kill him. Slowly, inexorably, death would come to him. And death was a sleep from which there was no awakening.... ”

“ In her hands the girl held the crystal globe, shining with its stolen radiance. Now she leaned forward, lowering the globe to the surface of the pool. It seemed to float, pulsing. Sparkles from the pool ran to it in a growing boil of motion—and were absorbed. The activity grew swifter and yet swifter, until the pool seethed and foamed with brilliance. The air turned electric with a sensation of vast striving, of super-human effort.
Watching puzzled, from his vantage point above the depression, Bryan saw the globe begin to swell. ”

“ Sammy called after her, his voice cajoling and his eyes sly. "Let's be friends."
She indicated her contempt by remaining coldly silent. Davey giggled suddenly, and Sammy spat a curse at him and whirled to stalk into the house.
The air grew warmer and lost its dewy freshness. Big Luke returned from a horseback trip to town with an earthenware jug, his eyes bleary and lidded and his sagging face with the shine of drunkenness. He tramped heavily into the house, and a short time later Fran heard him snoring. ”

“ I prepared a light meal, which Pearce and I ate in brooding silence. Finally Pearce said, "What I can't understand is why the butterfly things should have attacked Sandley. It isn't logical for the life forms of one world to prey upon the life forms of another. There are too many differences."
"I've been thinking about that myself," I answered. "The solution seems to be that the butterfly-creatures feed upon something common to all life forms—the mysterious electrical force that gives matter the peculiar property of being alive." ”

“ A trip between one point and another can be made only once, because even that one trip brings changes which affect the whole system, or complex. One point, it seems, is always shifted so that it lies outside of any orbit which can be plotted from the other.
"Nela told me about the kind of world she came from, too, and it sounded—and still sounds—like a perfect place. There was, so she said, practically no government, practically no laws, restrictions, or penalties. In two thousand years enough had been learned about the mind to make these unnecessary. Men at last were truly equal. ”

“ The mood of awed wonder which gripped them at once heightened and deepened.
"It is metal!" Tim Austin breathed. "But—but, Brad, it's not a vein. It's—"
"It's a door!" Nellon finished hoarsely.
It was a door, a metal door in the snow covered bank of a falls that had, in some long, long ago, solidified to ice. A door to what? Where did it lead? What would be on the other side of it? What could be on the other side of a metal door on a world where it was doubtful that living beings had ever existed at all? ”

“ A second of the mosquito-men dove at Mulvaney as he, too, struggled erect, its needle-snout piercing his back. Mulvaney remained bent-over, frozen, statue-like.
There was an odd hiatus, poignant, holding a realization of hopes lost forever. Then a slim pale figure moved into Bryan's line of sight—Leeta. She approached to stand before him, holding the crystal globe, a vast wonder in her small face. He felt a pulse of thought, soft and clear, holding a ring of silver chimes.
"It is you—he whose will cannot be overcome. Strange that we should meet again ... ”

“ When a beautiful girl appears in a time machine and tells some young man she needs his help, he doesn't just drop whatever he happens to be doing and go sailing blithely off into the mysterious future. ”

“ Big Luke yelled after her, obviously alerted by the creak of the kitchen door. "Where you running off to now, blast it?"
"To get some wood."
"Well, no more monkey-shines, if you know what's good for you!"
The shed was large and shadowy. The single window had been boarded up after the glass was broken. As Fran began heaping one arm with rough, chopped lengths of wood, she heard a quick shuffle of footsteps and saw Sammy crossing the yard toward the doorway. He still looked mad—even madder than he had been back in the ravine. ”

“ The globe lowered. Over it the girl peered at him, startled, perplexed. And from the background came a piping despair.
"Failed.... It has failed...."
"He has a strength I have not met before." An echo of that other despair lay in the silver chiming. And an overtone of awe. "He cannot be taken—and that is strange. He has qualities I cannot quite explain. But his will is great—great enough, I think, to penetrate the veil unaided."
"He cannot be taken...." The piping again, sorrowfully resigned.
Bryan was aware of the girl's eyes on him. The wistfulness in them seemed to have grown. ”

“ A child is credulous and imaginative to an extent a man is not. And a child is adventurous, will let his enthusiasms carry him spontaneously where a man will hesitate and look for a catch. Most of all a child is impressionable and can be imbued with an idea which he will follow like a beacon light all his life.
"I was the child Nela finally settled on. The Andy Pearce she had first scouted still existed in time, and nothing would change for him. ”

“ There was a rasp in Nellon's earphones. And then Big Tim Austin's voice followed it.
"Brad—I'm going in. This—why, this is the biggest find of the whole expedition!"
"It might be dangerous," Nellon pointed out, before he could become aware of the wealth of irony which lay behind the words. "We don't know what sort of life—"
"But this door has been hidden under snow for the Lord only knows how many years, Brad. Look where the crust had split here. It's thick, thick. Nothing has gone in or out for a hell of a long time. If there were beings, they're either gone or dead." ”

“ The pale light touched Fran, touched her ankle—and the pain was gone. Pain would always go like that, she knew.
"Come," Davey said. "We're going to a place that has been waiting for us, Fran—a place none of us ever thought of until a while ago.... Follow the pattern in my mind. Carefully, now. Carefully."
The voices of men, puzzled and angry. The footsteps of men, grating on rock, rushing nearer. ”

“ The energy of his body, it seemed, had been heavily drawn upon in order to sustain the projection of himself in Leeta's aspect.
Leeta.... He thought of her with a crushing sense of tragedy. He knew he loved her—incredible and weird as that love may have seemed. He remembered the shyness of her kiss, the numbed horror of her belief that she had been betrayed, that he had pretended love only as a ruse to obtain Mulvaney's freedom. ”

“ But no paradox is involved, for what we call time is an illusion, a subjective quality arising from an awareness of objective conditions—and these conditions are not quite what we think they are. That first Andy Pearce was something like a bubble moving in a glass tube. All Nela did was put another bubble in motion. The tube itself was not affected, nor was time shifted, bent, nullified, or anything of the sort. Each bubble was as real as anything can be said to be real, each existed in its own particular space-time, each was completely distinct and independent of the other. ”

“ Directly below it glittered the complex mass of a great machine. This was spread upon a huge base and narrowed as it rose. Circling the apex were a multitude of rod-like projections, the ends of which terminated in large crystal cones. The bases of these were pointed upward, and from each a pale, almost invisible, beam shot up and into the green ball, as though at once nourishing and supporting it.
But it was not this which held the incredulous fixity of their gaze. For arranged in concentric circles about the machine were hundreds of tables or low platforms and upon each a still figure lay. ”

“ She had a feeling of vibrant, singing strength, as though she could launch herself with the effortlessness of a bird into the gold-hazed, green distance and soar tirelessly to the very end of the world. ”

“ Witch? Again he wondered. He could find nothing evil in her face, nothing of cruelty or guile. Behind the compelling anxiety in her eyes, the sadness that touched her full lips, was ... innocence.
The curiosity faded from her face. The tenseness and urgency that had been lurking in her abruptly became dominant.
Her hands lifted. Bryan saw now that she held an object in them, a globe of cloudy gray crystal, within which seemed to lay a core of pale rose light. And the light, he noticed, waxed and waned in a slow pulsing. ”

“ Dave Fuller growled. "After letting myself be coaxed into this trip and driving all morning."
"Good?" Pearce was grinning, though his voice held no humor. "Dave, I guarantee it's going to be better than anything you can possibly imagine."
Ellen frowned at Pearce. "You know, Andy, somehow you scare me."
"It's the beast in him," Fuller put in. "The gals are always fooled by Andy's curly hair and soulful eyes, but sooner or later they wake up to his true nature."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "I think you're a beast, too. All men are beasts. But as for Andy, he takes first prize. ”

“ For long moments they lay still. A thick pall of settling snow hung on the frigid air. The wind seized portions of this and sent them whirling and twisting in fantastic gyrations.
The thermalloy suits were essentially compact, mobile shelters, and had been designed more for protection against inimical extra-terrestrial elements rather than for comfort. Brad Nellon had been bruised and shaken until it seemed that his body was one throbbing ache. ”

“ She didn't want Davey and Sammy to reach her. Not out here, with no one else around. She knew Sammy would beat her until her resistance was gone. Then he would run his sweaty hands over her, laughing shrilly and breathing hard. Sammy always managed it so that Davey was the one who held her. She shuddered. She didn't like the things Sammy did with his hands.
A short distance ahead she saw that the field rose in a ridge, and suddenly she recognized the spot. There was a ravine below the ridge, choked with brush. ”

“ Bryan detected a sudden eagerness in the winged shapes that hovered beyond. And with the eagerness came the child-like piping.
"Take him, Leeta! He has courage. This time you may succeed."
An answering thought; soft, holding a delicate note. "Patience...."
Then Bryan saw the crystal globe being lifted still higher—toward his face. Behind it the girl's large exotic eyes seemed very intent. Within the globe the pulsing of the pale rose core quickened.
Bryan felt something draw at him. A strange force—like insistent hands. Hands immaterial and yet tangible, that reached into him ... and pulled. ”

“ Pearce returned. "But believe me, for one of the few times in my life I'm dead serious. Keep quiet and listen. I don't have much time left."
"Go on, Andy," Ellen said. "I'm fascinated."
Pearce took a final puff of his cigarette crushed it out in the grass, and continued. "Nela explained how it was possible to travel in time, but in the sort of terms a kid would understand. Even what I've figured out up to now isn't specific enough to be worth detailing, except to say that what we consider space and time are merely illusions of sense perception. ”

“ They stood as still as a pair of weird, metal statues, watching. Every sense, keyed to its highest, was directed at the widening gap.
At last all movement ceased, and the door hung wide. The humming note which had accompanied its opening dwindled to a whisper and died away. Revealed was a tunnel of utter blackness.
Tim Austin released his breath. The sound roused Nellon from the trance which gripped him.
"It's probably controlled by an automatic mechanism. When we shoved against it, we must have set that mechanism in motion."
"I'm going in, Brad," Big Tim said suddenly. ”

“ The voice she had come to identify as Tom seemed saddened. "You see, Fran, the war was the product of a machine age. But men have gone back to the soil. They had to. There aren't many machines left any more, and there's no way to build them or keep them going. So they've been wearing out, breaking down. People used machines to communicate with each other and spread ideas and knowledge. Without the machines, their world has grown smaller. They're afraid of things that aren't part of it. And we aren't of their little world, Fran. ”